For a very long time, Amer­ic­an lead­ers have be­lieved that demo­cracy could solve many of the world’s prob­lems. And no, I’m not just re­fer­ring to George W. Bush; I’m talk­ing Thomas Jef­fer­son. “This ball of liberty, I be­lieve most pi­ously, is now so well in mo­tion that it will roll around the globe,” Jef­fer­son wrote ec­stat­ic­ally after Amer­ic­an in­de­pend­ence. Al­most every pres­id­ent since then, in­clud­ing Bush and Barack Obama, has cham­pioned to dif­fer­ing de­grees the idea that glob­al demo­cracy is an in­ev­it­able and be­ne­fi­cent his­tor­ic­al force.

But the ball of liberty is look­ing pretty de­flated these days, es­pe­cially in the Mideast. Des­pite much ed­it­or­i­al­iz­ing that holds a neo-isol­a­tion­ist Obama re­spons­ible for this, the trend has little to do with U.S. policy. It has far more to do with the emer­ging real­ity that not only isn’t demo­cracy a pan­acea, it some­times — apostasy alert! — doesn’t work well at all. In­deed, in some un­ready parts of the globe like the Ar­ab world, demo­cracy may not be the best way for­ward, at least right now.

That is es­pe­cially true in coun­tries where tri­bal and sec­tari­an polit­ics still rule the na­tion­al sens­ib­il­ity, and the groups that win elec­tions are mainly in­ter­ested in stifling, dis­en­fran­chising, or even killing their out-bal­loted rivals, as in Egypt, Ir­aq, and very likely Syr­ia. Plainly, the Obama ad­min­is­tra­tion has ad­ap­ted its policy ac­cord­ingly. We are thus at a high tide of real­politik.

Con­sider, for starters, Egypt, where the main source of dia­logue for months has been con­duc­ted in a fairly smooth way between junta lead­er Gen. Ab­del Fa­tah al-Sisi and De­fense Sec­ret­ary Chuck Hagel. True enough: Un­der the junta that ous­ted Pres­id­ent Mo­hamed Mor­si last Ju­ly, the two-day con­sti­tu­tion­al ref­er­en­dum that began Tues­day has been rigged and vir­tu­ally en­sures mil­it­ary rule, open­ing the way for Sisi to re­fash­ion him­self as a Hosni Mubarak-like auto­crat. “It ought to be ob­vi­ous that the ‘road map’ to demo­cracy that Gen. Sisi is pro­mot­ing is no more than a fig leaf cov­er­ing the res­tor­a­tion of the pre-2011 re­gime, in a more ma­lig­nant form,” TheWash­ing­ton Post ed­it­or­i­al­ized in op­pos­ing the re­sump­tion of more than $1 bil­lion in U.S. aid.

But what if the con­sti­tu­tion forced through in 2012 by the elec­ted Mor­si, the de­posed Is­lam­ist pres­id­ent, was even more re­press­ive than what Egyp­tians voted on this week? Ar­gu­ably, it was. That con­sti­tu­tion en­shrined Is­lam­ism and sharia as the law of the land, which Mor­si en­forced with a de­cree for­bid­ding the courts from chal­len­ging it, and un­der it he as­sumed near-dic­tat­ori­al powers that Sisi will al­most cer­tainly not have if he be­comes pres­id­ent. While the new con­sti­tu­tion does, some­what alarm­ingly, es­tab­lish the dom­in­ance of the mil­it­ary, it also ex­pands per­son­al freedoms and rights for Egypt’s broad­er pop­u­la­tion, in­clud­ing wo­men and the Chris­ti­an minor­ity.

It also ap­pears that many Egyp­tians agree with this less­er-of-evils as­sess­ment, based on the early vote in which the Sisi ref­er­en­dum ap­peared to be widely sup­por­ted. Most Egyp­tians des­per­ately want eco­nom­ic growth after three years of chaos, and they’ll vote for who­ever prom­ises to de­liv­er sta­bil­ity. Right now that is Sisi, no mat­ter how hor­rific­ally bloody his crack­down on the Muslim Broth­er­hood has been. Bey­ond that, Wash­ing­ton badly needs Egypt, the most pop­u­lous Ar­ab coun­try, on its side in the Middle East right now as it at­tempts a dra­mat­ic re­align­ment in­clud­ing Is­raeli-Palestini­an talks and ne­go­ti­ations with Ir­an and Syr­ia. So there is really little choice for U.S. poli­cy­makers but to side with mor­ally com­prom­ised pseudo-demo­cracy.

In Syr­ia, giv­en re­cent trends, the ouster of Bashar al-As­sad fol­lowed by any­thing re­sem­bling demo­crat­ic elec­tions would al­most cer­tainly bring 1) a blood­bath and 2) some form of Is­lam­ist rule that is even more rad­ic­al and anti-West­ern than what Mor­si and the Muslim Broth­er­hood planned in Egypt. Sec­ret­ary of State John Kerry’s cur­rent ef­fort to bring As­sad and mod­er­ate op­pos­i­tion ele­ments to­geth­er in Switzer­land doesn’t ob­scure the fact that the de­cis­ive fight­ing go­ing on in the coun­try is a three-way battle between the re­gime, rad­ic­al Syr­i­an Is­lam­ists, and rival rad­ic­al for­eign­ers rep­res­en­ted by the al-Qaida-linked group called Is­lam­ic State of Ir­aq and Syr­ia. If there were post-As­sad elec­tions in Syr­ia any time soon — real elec­tions — a pop­u­la­tion un­der the gun of some of these dom­in­ant Is­lam­ist groups would likely vote in a rad­ic­al gov­ern­ment. Against that pro­spect, even a bloody tyr­ant like As­sad might be prefer­able for the time be­ing.

In Ir­aq, des­pite a mul­ti­tril­lion-dol­lar U.S. ef­fort over the bet­ter part of a dec­ade, Prime Min­is­ter Nuri al-Ma­liki has, again and again, al­lowed his sec­tari­an Shiite polit­ic­al base (and pos­sibly Ir­an) to dic­tate policy to­ward the Sun­nis and Kur­ds. Now, in re­sponse, Sunni tri­bal lead­ers are tem­por­iz­ing over wheth­er to take on — or join — the re­sur­rec­ted al-Qaida-linked Is­lam­ist groups that have moved in­to Fal­lu­jah and Ra­madi. Ma­jor­ity rule can really suck if your prime min­is­ter can’t see bey­ond his polit­ic­al base, as in the case of Ma­liki and his Dawa Party, and is meth­od­ic­ally dis­en­fran­chising his op­pon­ents. This is not a demo­cracy that is work­ing on any level.

The lam­ent­able lim­its of demo­cracy may soon ex­tend to Libya, if it can ever re­in­teg­rate it­self in­to a na­tion­al whole. Since Muam­mar el-Qad­dafi, Libya has be­come one gi­ant no-man’s-land loosely gov­erned by mi­li­tias, most of which would be only too happy to hi­jack any elec­tion. In Ye­men, se­ces­sion­ist tend­en­cies between north and south have ree­m­erged in the post-Saleh era. Only in Tunisia, where the rul­ing Is­lam­ist En­nahda party was scared straight by the ouster of Mor­si in nearby Egypt, is there some hope for the kind of con­sensus polit­ics that is crit­ic­al to suc­cess­ful demo­cracy. (Are you listen­ing, U.S. Con­gress?)

It’s a hard les­son to learn. But some­times, it seems, coun­tries are simply not ma­ture enough, so­cially or eco­nom­ic­ally, for demo­cracy. Or the mo­ment in his­tory is wrong. Post-czar­ist Rus­sia ap­peared that way when the auto­crat­ic Bolshev­iks took out the weak, par­lia­ment­ary-minded Men­shev­iks in 1917. And Wei­mar Ger­many did too, when the Nazi Party and newly elec­ted Chan­cel­lor Hitler ex­ploited the coun­try’s De­pres­sion-en­gendered eco­nom­ic chaos to ab­use their elect­or­al ad­vant­age as well, a situ­ation that has un­set­tling echoes today in Egypt. Vladi­mir Putin’s Rus­sia may be prov­ing the same thing today, along with Ukraine, where the op­pos­i­tion to Putin’s like-minded ally, Vic­tor Ya­nukovich, has de­gen­er­ated in­to ul­tra-right­ist torch­light parades. Choos­ing between Pu­tin­ists and neo-Nazis is a little like choos­ing between mil­it­ary rulers and Is­lam­ist zealots — it is, in oth­er words, no choice at all.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) are threatening to block the spending bill—and prevent the Senate from leaving town—"because it would not extend benefits for retired coal miners for a year or pay for their pension plans. The current version of the bill would extend health benefits for four months. ... Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Thursday afternoon moved to end debate on the continuing resolution to fund the government through April 28. But unless Senate Democrats relent, that vote cannot be held until Saturday at 1 a.m. at the earliest, one hour after the current funding measure expires."

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PARLIAMENT VOTED 234-56

South Korean President Impeached

1 hours ago

THE LATEST

The South Korean parliament voted on Friday morning to impeach President Park Geun-hye over charges of corruption, claiming she allowed undue influence to a close confidante of hers. Ms. Park is now suspended as president for 180 days. South Korea's Constitutional Court will hear the case and decide whether to uphold or overturn the impeachment.

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CLOSED FOR INAUGURAL ACTIVITIES

NPS: Women’s March Can’t Use Lincoln Memorial

1 hours ago

THE DETAILS

Participants in the women's march on Washington the day after inauguration won't have access to the Lincoln Memorial. The National Park Service has "filed documents securing large swaths of the national mall and Pennsylvania Avenue, the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial for the inauguration festivities. None of these spots will be open for protesters."

Source:

2.1 PERCENT IN 2017

President Obama Boosts Civilian Federal Pay

1 hours ago

THE LATEST

President Obama on Thursday announced a pay raise for civilian federal employees of 2.1 percent come January 2017. He had said multiple times this year that salaries would go up 1.6 percent, so the Thursday announcement came as a surprise. The change was likely made to match the 2.1 percent increase in salary that members of the military will receive.

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SHUTDOWN LOOMING

House Approves Spending Bill

20 hours ago

BREAKING

The House has completed it's business for 2016 by passing a spending bill which will keep the government funded through April 28. The final vote tally was 326-96. The bill's standing in the Senate is a bit tenuous at the moment, as a trio of Democratic Senators have pledged to block the bill unless coal miners get a permanent extension on retirement and health benefits. The government runs out of money on Friday night.